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Originally posted by andrzejpw
SumB: I've read that the accuracy is suppossed to be this way. It encourages you to try the stealthy approach. |
Well, it sounds like an excuse for bad game design. There were other ways to go about this which wouldn't have detracted from the gameplay or credibility of the games theme. It's more difficult to play covertly when it takes 3-4 shots to take out that overhead light that's only few feet away when you want to keep yourself concealed in darkness. So in that sense the developers undermined the type of play they wished the player to undertake.
I expect an elite and seasoned black op to be proficient with the tools of the trade. Is it too much to ask of the pistol being of some use in a pinch? At the range you can successfuly employ it you may as well resort to hand-to-hand (but wait, Sam Fisher can't do that with any degree of skill either).
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The level design is brilliant. No other game makes me truly feel like a CIA operative. I rappel down walls. I rappel through glass. I hang of an edge so that the enemy doesn't see me. I jump up between a wall, letting the enemy pass, or something else . I use a colonel's eyes to get past a door. Its everything you've ever dreamed of. |
I disagree on the level design. The maps are extremely bland, barren, small, with monotonous architecture, and too much reliance on 2d sprites for a modern title. The overwhelming sameness and amount of not-so-obvious dead-ends make them tedious to navigate. It's just a travesty in the company of those superlatives of the past and present which I'm about to get to.
And you can do all that you've mentioned in the Thief series, save for being a covert agent and split-jumping - a series which debuted in 1998 and pioneered the genre not coincidentally. The AI was monumentally better as well. Guards actually displayed intelligence - make a lot of noise and they come to investigate - if they're the cautious type they'll call for reinforcements to coordinate a search rather than go solo; make a little and they may blow it off as a rat or the wind after a brief look. Once your position is compromised the guards (depending on personality) may try to cut to down where you stand, or they may retreat and return with reinforcments, or anything in-between, all the while barking orders/insults that really add to the immersion. Unlike SC people you come across don't all look the same - the guards will don the same armour depending on their rank and allegiance, but there's variation in their features and body type. And I really haven't even begun to touch on the goodness of these games.
The Thief games had much more impressive maps. Massive and majestic castles, sprawling medieval cityscapes, lost cities, and even missions that had the player infiltrating the rooftops of the impressive city (a large, believeable city) at dizzying hights, most of which are non-linear so the strategies were near endless. They were populated with civilians where appropriate and it really made for some interesting gameplay - unlike Splinter Cell where they're merely superficial and perhaps one or two of them per level. Now granted Splinter Cell takes place in a contemporary setting, but the Hitman series managed inspiring and fresh locales based loosely on modern real-world locations.
I'd better cut this short now, this is becoming a full-length review. But suffice it to say, I don't think Splinter Cell is a very good game in the broad scheme of things.